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I'm a newbie, so forgive me for my dumb question. But in the attached photo, what's the difference between carbonation and bottle conditioning? What are the exact steps I need to take after fermentation? Do I just bottle with priming sugar and wait 5 weeks total? Or is there a step before actually bottling that is needed? Thanks!

I’ve been having this problem after I’ve bottled my beer. Some of the bottles overflow after a week or so. The remains of the bottle taste fine, so I know that they are not spoiled. I am careful not to put too much sugar in. I was thinking that the problem was that my basement does not get much above 60 degrees, so maybe they were still fermenting. I kept my last batch in the keg for 4 weeks before bottling, but the same thing happened. Any ideas to help me keep more of my beer?

I bottled my first beer one week ago. Being a curious newbie, every couple of days I would squeeze the bottles a little to see how things were carbonating. I have been following these four bottles that did not appear to be getting firm. I have made sure that the caps were tight. Today after reading everything I could find, I decided to turn them upside down and that is when I noticed a little beer dripping out. Despite tightening it seems that the bottom ring is preventing these from sealing. I quickly opened them, pulled the ring off and re-tightened. That seems to have fixed the leaking. Question- are these beers doomed or do they have a chance to carbonate?

Bottled my 1st brew, the Octoberfest. It's been a week, and some of the 22oz bottles are much harder than others. I'm pretty sure I forgot to add 2 sugar primers in some of the bottles. Can I open the softer ones and drop in another primer? Thanks!

For my next batch of brew I want to use the 12 oz. bottles. The Mr. Beer carbonation drops are to much. What amount of sugar does one need, any special kind of sugar or a way to use the drops, that is the question.

After a few years watching Craigtube brewing videos, i have taken the plunge. ordered MB American Lager kit. after very meticulous sanitizing
of everything touching brew, in the LBK for three weeks, maintaining the temp. between 66 and 72 deg.F. Krausen at 2-3 days. three weeks in
the bottle, maintaining 68-70 deg. F here in hot Georgia. Started putting the bottles once a day through the fridge and sampling after 24 hours.
Have tried 5 of the bottles. With the exception of one bottle which was very tasty and well carbed, most taste like a beer flavored drink. No car-
bonation and no alcohol. I don't have a hydrometer so i can't test the alcohol along the way, just 45 years of beer experience. as to the carbonation,
no fizz and no upside down bubble storm. Any ideas?

So I just finished my first batch of American light, and bottled it in the 740ml plastic amber bottles it came with(put 2carbo drops in each bottle). Now I need more bottles, I am going to Amazon and notice I have 2 options...
Amber or Clear?
Does this make a difference?
Right now I have my conditioning beer bottles in a dark cabinet at room temperature. So does this affect the beer in any way?
Thank you

Hello, I am a new brewer and very excited to get started. My first batch is just about done fermenting. Probably about 2-3 days left in the Keg fermenter. I have a basic Mr Beer 2 gallon keg fermenter, and this batch is the American light. I tasted a sip and it has just a little hint of sweetness, but tastes good! So just a little time to go! I also have a 2nd batch I just made 2 days ago, Czech Pilsner with the same kit in a 2nd fermenter. So if bottling with mason jars works well I will try again.
-To carbonate the beer I want to use 1QT Mason Jars. I am going to add 3 Coopers Carbonation-Drops to each jar. These use a screw on lid, and they are reusable, and glass.
-So is this acceptable for carbonating?
-How long does it take to carbonate 1QT jars?
Thank you

Got a simple Chocolate Porter working now, wondering if I should use the carbonation tablets I purchased or use sugar. I'm seeing mixed reviews on the subject; I'm thinking about doing half with sugar, the other half with the tabs. Thoughts??

So yesterday is two weeks in the bottle. I took one out and gave it the squeeze test. It wasn't rock hard. It was more like a 2-liter that has been recently opened and not much taken out - firm but still a little squishy. Is this normal? I'm using 500ml PET bottles and 1 carbo drop each.

My first batch came out great, so thinking I am now hot stuff, I'm brewing a Diablo IPA for the second batch. One of my first tours through the forums, I saw several posts talking about how the Mr. Beer recommendations on priming sugar seemed a little heavy and and preferring hoppy beer, I thought my Classic Light first batch was a touch sweet for my own tastes, so I went about half the recommended priming sugar when I bottled. The bottles never really got hard, and after 3 weeks of conditioning, it was still tasty but undercarbonated. My humbled newbie question is this: can I add the remaining recommended sugar to the 3 1/2 week carbonating bottles, let them sit in the beer cave for another 3 weeks, and have great salvaged carbonated IPA, or is this like opening the lid of the fermenter, letting invisible critters in and removing all the carbonation work my poor hungry yeasts accomplished when I tried to starve them with half the sugar? It isn't flat, but it isn't something I want to serve anyone else. Thanks in advance for the help and ideas!

Hello, First brew and first post so please bear with me. I have a Classic American light bottled for one week and in a room at 72 degrees in a ice chest. I need to leave my location and will not be able to monitor the temps for six days. I don't want to leave the A/C on during this time and think the room temps will be in the 80's during the day in my absence. Should I put the beer in the refrigerator even though the temp will be much lower the ideal and I still have one week minimum to go on the carbonating? Any other ideas that don't cost lots of money? Bob

I allowed my batch of Noche de Luna to ferment for four weeks in the LBK in the basement where the air temperature is a pretty constant 66 degrees. I bottled in 12 oz. bottles with 3/4 teaspoon of table sugar. I kept the bottles upstairs to condition at around 70 degrees or so. At three weeks I gave some a try and thought it was pretty good but needed a bit more conditioning. I threw some in the fridge yesterday morning and pulled one out last evening to test. I opened the bottle and to my surprise sprayed beer all over the kitchen. I opened up another half dozen and three of them were fine while the others overflowed into the sink. They were obviously overcarbonated but I am surprised that they were fine two weeks ago but not now. The temperature in the house has gone up a bit (spring arrives late in this part of the country) so I am considering letting future batches carbonate/condition in the basement where the temperature is a bit lower. I put the rest of this batch in the fridge hoping any remaining good bottles will remain that way. Any thoughts/experiences would be appreciated.

Made an Imperial IPA with 1.100 OG and 11gr S-05 yeast. It's been about 10 days since bottle and there's barely any resistance when I squeeze my PET bottles. I know someone will say to wait longer but here's the thing: I bottled another beer on the same day and it is stored in the same place. Those bottles are rock hard. The issue is, because it's an IPA, I don't want the freshness of the dry hop to waste away while I'm waiting for the bottles to firm up... if they ever do. I know they're all primed correctly so I'm considering them and sprinkling some yeast. Ideas? Or just wait and hope that the aroma doesn't fade too much?

So I totally forgot to order carbonation drops for the last brew I ordered which was the Hop Head Red IPA. I had a few from my last batch and weighed one out at 3.3g. I used 16oz bottles to brew with and used 4.3g of granulated sugar which is about 2/3 less than I normally use with the drops at a rate of 1.5+/- equaling 4.95g+/- in weight. This batch of beer gives more than nice head . It is not over obundant but doing a solid obtuse pour of about 160 degrees does provide a lot of foam. This is not happening to all bottles though, I found one with a leaking gasket which poured out perfectly, about 90% of the other beers were really foamy and the other 10% as soon as I flipped the tops "POING!" the beer started over flowing right away. So I had a couple things going on which to me seems inconsistant as I measured out the granulated sugar to the T and used less than I normally do all around then when using the drops from Mr. Beer. Is there a difference between using the Mr. Beer solidified glucose versus granulated glucose for carbonation? Please note: There has to be some science involved in this so a dumb generic answer will not suffice as there is a difference in how the yeast will handle seperated glucose particles compared to a solidified glucose block that the yeast has to work through. Indulge me

It's a Friday, I'm at work and I'm board. I just had this crazy thought could you use a SodaStream to instantly carb your beer after fermentation? Has anyone ever done this? Yea I know the bottle conditioning is for more that just carbonation, just curious if anyones tried it and it work?

My first attempt at brewing and my carbonation time is up today. All of my bottles but 3 are rock hard. Should I put these rock hard ones in the fridge now and leave the soft ones for another few days or a week until they are rock hard. Or should the soft ones be considered a casualty of war?